


Flame of Life

by Imhiriel



Series: Imhiriel's Drabbles [50]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Creation Myth, Gen, Mythological Concepts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-10
Updated: 2007-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-27 21:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5064883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imhiriel/pseuds/Imhiriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the Imperishable Flame could speak...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flame of Life

**Author's Note:**

> MEFAwards 2008: Honorable Mention – Times: Multi-Age: Fixed-Length Ficlets

I am the Imperishable Flame.

I have been kindled before Time by Eru Himself. I am the breath of Life, the beginning of Creation.

Whosoever is touched by my fire will burn with passion to bring into being the designs of their heart and mind. The passion to give comfort and warmth to the world, to enrich and adorn it. But equally the passion to bring destruction and pain, to develop devices of strife and domination.

Numerous are those trying to find me, seeking in the strangest places, even the Void. Melkor was only the first of those desiring to take hold of me, albeit the greatest. But still his search proved in vain, the start of his fall from grace.

He did not understand:

I am an ideal, an impossible dream, the unreachable goal of a quest – endlessly far, never attainable. I am the Secret Fire.

For I am with Ilúvatar – and I am at the heart of the World.

Yet my light is shining out like a beacon of hope to everyone looking for me.

A spark of me resides in everyone and everything there is in Eä, as promised by Eru Ilúvatar, until the end of Time.

**Author's Note:**

> \- In the Silm, Ainulindalë, it says at first, “Yet [Melkor] found not the [Imperishable Flame], for it is with Ilúvatar,“ whereas later it says, “And I will send forth into the Void the Flame Imperishable, and it shall be at the heart of the World...“ I have tried to explain the apparent contradiction of the “is” in the first statement by giving the Flame the mysterious/mythic quality to be both simultaneously.  
> \- The term “Secret Fire” as another name for the Imperishable Flame can be found in the Silm, Valaquenta.  
> \- The references to the Book of Genesis, “The Man of La Mancha” and the Holy Grail are intentional.
> 
>  
> 
> _10.09.07 My 50th drabble, and to celebrate the occasion, a double dose of it._


End file.
